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Jaron Lanier on the Semi-Closed Internet
Will Wilkinson writes "Jaron Lanier's recent essay, The Gory Antigora: Illusions of Capitalism and Computers, kicks off a discussion of 'Internet Liberation: Alive or Dead?' at the Cato Institute's new blogazine, Cato Unbound. In Lanier's essay today, find out how the 'brittleness' of software has kept the Internet from realizing its potential as 'a cross between Adam Smith and Albert Einstein; the Invisible Hand accelerating toward the speed of light.' Also, find out why, upon meeting Richard Stallman, Lanier's reaction was: 'An open version of UNIX! Yuk!'"
I didn't understand one word of that.
Jaron Lanier... Cato Institute... 'blogazine'... Richard Stallman
After that summary, I can't decide whether I need to take an aspirin or a shower first.
From the summary:
at the Cato Institute's new blogazine
Alarm bells are ringing, Willie:
Fluff topic? Check.
A grandiosely named organization? Check
A newly-coined, silly, and far-too-hip word modeled after another newly-coined, silly, and far-too-hip word? Check.
Also, find out why, upon meeting Richard Stallman, Lanier's reaction was: 'An open version of UNIX! Yuk!'
This part is probably true, although without the 'An open version of UNIX!' part.
I want to drag this out as long as possible. Bring me my protractor.
But I just got a prescription for "blogazine", a topical ointment which alleviates muscle pain.
Old people fall. Young people spring. Rich people summer and winter.
Oh good god, they've managed to find a word even more annoying than blogosphere: blogozine :/
Oolite: Elite-like game. For Mac, Linux and Windows
This entire essay is bunk. . .
You misspelled "llshit."
KFG
Lanier created a blogazine. Do I need to spell it out for you? B-L-O-G-A-Z-I-N-E. There, I did it.
For more information, click here.
Oh, but you know the rest.
I've had it. I'm through with this whole Internet thing. Limitless porn and amazon coupon codes are no longer worth it. I'm going back to writing checks, using stamps, and gaming using my console.
The first real annoyance was "boxen". Sure, it's pretty gay, but I can live with the occasional geek using it. (Actually, the first annoyance I remember was the green card spam, but that's going back a bit far). Then came "google" as a verb. Such nonsense, but trivial. The rise of the "blog" is easy to ignore - I don't care what most people think in person, so at least if they're busy typing their thoughts they're won't be able to tell them to me.
But now..."blogazine"? Blogazine. Lord, help me.
Now I've got to finish downloading the Internet's porn collection and burning it to DVD. You can't expect me to go cold turkey!
I'd dare say as soon as they created a browser that could render HTML and graphics we had all these things.
No, I can tell you exactly when the problems began, and that was with the BLINK tag.
Everything before that was pretty tame -- it's when things started to move that it got really obnoxious. From blinking crap it was pretty much a straight downward progression to animated GIF crap, and then to Flash crap.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
The very same peer that resets my connection every 5 minutes.
DAMN YOU PEER!!!
...just a few days ago. I remember the promise of the virtual world back in the late 80s and early 90s. Whatever happened to the neo-hippy, VR enhanced, smart drug world that I was promised almost 20 years ago???
-"...bad old ideas look confusingly fresh when they are packaged as technology" - Jaron Lanier (Digital Maoism on Edge.o
Don't compare someone to Vanilla Ice unless you can prove that he got his ass kicked by Todd "Willis" Bridges on national television.
For more information, click here.
jason on the whole is a pretty smart guy, and was instrumental in helping sell the dream of virtual reality. it's too bad too, because personally i don't think it was so much the lack of real world virtual reality applications that ended up tanking the whole VR scene (although technology and implmentation were way behind concept), it was that somehow goggled-and-gloved-freaky-white-guy-with-dreadlock s jason lanier became the poster child of VR. that image of jason with the glove and the goggles propped on his head must have made more than one corporate VC type question what the hell he was doing with their money. if evan's and sutherland were the posterkids for VR in the 80's and 90's the way jason was, VR/VRML might not have tanked...
three can keep a secret, if two are dead - benjamin franklin
I'm thinking about creating a magalog, myself. Or maybe a blook. Not a blamphlet, though. That would be dumb.
I seriously have no clue what you just wrote, or how it is even remotely related to my post. Would you like a copy of The Elements of Style as well?
The Rise and Fall of Online Community